


Literary Appreciation

by MissSpookyEyes



Category: Star Wars Legends: The Old Republic (Video Game)
Genre: F/F, extremely erudite flirtation, just one of their early conversations
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-31
Updated: 2020-01-31
Packaged: 2021-02-25 15:20:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,717
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22498219
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MissSpookyEyes/pseuds/MissSpookyEyes
Summary: Chiss don't blush, and Jedi aren't supposed to. But during some downtime on Rishi, Lana Beniko decides she would rather like to see this Chiss Jedi embarrassed. It doesn't go as planned.
Relationships: Lana Beniko/Female Jedi Consular | Barsen'thor
Comments: 5
Kudos: 63





	Literary Appreciation

It's widely believed to be impossible to make a Chiss blush.

Lana knew better. She's worked with plenty of individuals from that species through the years, and Chiss do share many of the physiological responses common to warm-blooded humanoids, including increased blood flow to capillaries in the cheeks and forehead in response to feelings like embarrassment. The difference when it comes to Chiss is that this doesn't show up as a reddening or darkening across the skin. Instead, the increased blood flow leads to a greater concentration of the photosensitive particles contained in Chiss circulatory fluid, and what shows up on the skin is not a rosy flush or a darkened shade but a silvery sheen across the cheeks and forehead. Easily discernible to another Chiss, it's on the edge of perception for other species; if it registers at all, it's as an undifferentiated intensification of the aloof, exotic quality the Chiss, with their almost eerily glowing red eyes, aristocratic bearing and uniform blue skin, already seem to possess. Lana has often thought that it explains rather a lot about the Chiss that an emotion like embarrassment only serves to make them seem more untouchably, inhumanly beautiful.

It's not so much of a popular belief that it's impossible to make a Jedi blush, purely because most people don't tend to think of the Jedi on the level of frailties and foibles. Aren't the serene self-appointed guardians of the Republic supposed to be above such petty, ego-driven emotions as embarrassment? Nevertheless, Lana can't help but think it must be very easy to make a Jedi blush. The Jedi code is like a helpful list of experiences and emotions its adherents deliberately deny themselves, thereby making themselves hopelessly vulnerable to those experiences and emotions when they are forced into contact with them.

Still, there have to be easier tasks than making a Chiss Jedi blush.

Better uses for her time, too - or at least, there should be, and under almost any other circumstances, there would be. If it wasn't for the fact that Lana was currently cut off from all of her regular work and most of her contacts within the Empire, thanks to the Revanites; if it wasn't for the constraints of operational security, which demanded that their tiny team keep as low a profile on Rishi, and be seen as little in the streets, as possible; if it wasn't for Shan's profoundly irritating habit of taking much, much longer to complete his tasks than Lana was privately certain was necessary - then, Lana would have much better things to do. But as it was, a heavily disguised Theron Shan had left that morning with the intention of gathering intel on the Nova Blades' supply routes, intel without which they could not proceed with the next stage; and until Theron returned, the rest of them were stuck in a holding pattern. Lana had read, reread and memorized every report and scrap of information they currently had on the Nova Blades and the Revanites, had formulated and perfected plans for the next stage - both her plans and their plans - and now she was tired of strategising without being able to act, bored of sitting in this same chair in this same dingy room, and left with nothing to do but contemplate the woman sitting serenely across the room from her and think about how much she would like to see her blush.

It doesn't have to be a blush, exactly. Lana would be just as pleased to see the Jedi trip or drop something, or hear her stammer or swear or even break wind. Just something, no matter how tiny, some little sign that beneath all the accolades and Jedi platitudes and arcane titles, she was as real and breathing and bloody and imperfect as the rest of them. But there would be a very particular satisfaction in getting the Jedi to blush, above all else; to see her body betray her, and all the better for its being so subtle a crack in that insufferable cocoon of serenity.

Lana stole a glance under her lashes at the Jedi across the room. Of course, she hadn't moved. Just sat in the same uncomfortable chair she'd been sitting in for hours; back straight, one leg crossed over the other, hands keeping the datapad she was reading propped up on the table, not a flicker of expression on that impassive face. The only motion was the index finger of her right hand as she scrolled through whatever she was reading. Occasionally, presumably as a very great treat, she would sip from a glass of water.

Lana returned her eyes to her own datapad before the Jedi could sense her gaze, conscious that her irritation was both uncharacteristic and disproportionate. It wasn't as if she herself didn't know all about the power of stillness, of quiet; it was astonishing the impact that being the calmest person in a room full of Sith could have, and had, throughout her career. The fact that her own manner was considered unusual for a Sith had worked to her advantage in dealings with all sorts of beings, and she had deliberately cultivated it in consequence.

It was simply that, well, she was supposed to be the calm one, not the other woman. Lana might be in hiding from the Empire, considered to be a murderer by her own people, but it had been she, together of course with Theron, who had orchestrated this entire operation on Rishi, who had set all of this up, had brought the Barsen'thor - ignorant of why she was coming to Rishi or who had drawn her there - to act as their operative. It was she, Lana, who was the worldly one, and if there had been any doubt of that, it had been removed by watching the Jedi's frankly risible attempts at passing as a pirate in initial contacts. Lana had expected clumsy attempts to convert her, Lana, to the Light Side, had been prepared for the Jedi to be on hyper-alert for any signs of the seductions of the Sith, had been ready to assuage the other woman's apprehensions and get her to a workable level of trust; what she hadn't expected was for the Barsen'thor to sit in the same room calmly reading, as if this was all in a day's work.

It should be a good thing that the Jedi was more pragmatic and flexible than Lana had expected; it made things easier, removed at a stroke sources of potential friction and misunderstandings which could be disastrous to the success of the mission on Rishi. It shouldn't be so profoundly irritating, and yet Lana found herself unable to be as untroubled by the other woman's presence as the Jedi seemingly was by hers. Being in the same room as the Barsen'thor was ... disquieting, in some indefinable, visceral way that made Lana want to fidget in her chair and almost wish she hadn't been so ruthlessly successful in forcing herself to abandon her childhood habit of biting her nails. The compulsion to unsettle the other woman in the same way that she herself was unsettled was almost overwhelming.

Perhaps she, Lana, was simply Sith enough to be irked by the proximity of so much power.

And there was power. Oh, they were both being very careful, very polite, keeping themselves as shielded as they could and doing everything possible not to let their own presence in the Force impinge on the other. But no amount of metaphorical tiptoeing around each other could prevent each of them being aware of the other, and in Ellezhi's case ... One didn't have to be buffeted by the waves to know one was in the presence of the ocean, and that was what the Barsen'thor's Force aura was like, like those deceptively calm seas on Manaan which would, despite their smooth, glassy surfaces, swallow you utterly given the chance. Lana would have expected the Barsen'thor of the Jedi Order to be powerful, had felt the edges of the woman's strength in the Force herself on Manaan and Rakata Prime; but unlike the outsize presences in the Force Lana was used to amongst the Sith, which took your breath away at first but dulled with repeated exposure, the impact of the Jedi's aura didn't seem to fade the longer they spent in the same space. On the contrary, Lana felt like she was only growing more and more aware of it, more attuned to it; she was even becoming tempted to open herself up a little to it, to drink it in, and having to restrain herself from doing so was only adding to the bundle of irritations she was having to work hard to conceal.

And she would dearly like to see some sign that the Jedi was, on some level, as discomfited by all of this as she was.

Hence the desire to see the woman blush - which wasn't entirely childish and contemptible, Lana reminded herself. She might not be able to gather useful intel about the Revanites while she was stuck in this warehouse, but she could be discovering more about what made the Barsen'thor tick. The longer she spent around the other woman, the more Lana was visited by an overpowering sense of ... significance; she could not open herself fully, even in meditation, to explore the sensation, but it was akin enough to other promptings from the Force to tell her that the Jedi was going to play a very, very important role in her future, that they were going to be vitally involved with each other's fate before this was all over. Against that day, and against the Jedi's greater strength, Lana needed every weapon she could hold in readiness, every scrap of information she could gather about what lay beneath the Barsen'thor's seemingly impenetrable calm. She had studied the woman's record thoroughly, filed away her every suggestion and response when they strategised together, scrutinised the way she fought, her skills, her tactics, but Lana wasn't fooling herself that it would be enough to level the playing field between them; she needed more. What did it take to affect the Jedi, to make her let her control slip? What got under her skin? 

Just then, Lana noticed something. While she had been sitting and thinking, Nadia Grell, the Jedi's young Padawan, had got up from where she was meditating in the corner and crossed the room to the table, clearly headed for the pitcher of water that stood by the Jedi's elbow. Ellezhi tapped something on her datapad, then looked up briefly and smiled at the younger woman before returning to her reading. But as Nadia poured herself a glass of water, the pitcher slipped in her hand, water slopped into the glass, overfilling it and spilling onto the table, splashing on to the datapad Ellezhi was reading and dripping on to her trousers.

Nadia uttered a distressed exclamation, making both Lana and the Twi'lek who was carefully cleaning his blaster in the corner look up as Ellezhi pushed her chair back from the table to avoid getting dripped on any more. The Padawan was already starting to apologize as she seized a handful of her outer robe and started to mop up the water from the table. 'Master, I'm so sorry. Here, let me - oh.'

The apprentice had grabbed Ellezhi's datapad and lifted it close to her face to dry the droplets of water from its surface with her sleeve, but suddenly she dropped the datapad as if it was red hot, and Lana felt the surprise and embarrassment from the younger woman, less adept at shielding herself and her emotions, ripple through the Force.

Ellezhi calmly took her datapad back, quietened Nadia's apologies and took over the job of drying up the spilled water, and in moments, everything was back to the way it had been before the incident. The Padawan headed into the back room, where they kept their food supplies, with a promise of digging out something for the mid-afternoon meal, and the Jedi settled back into her chair and her reading and her impenetrable calm.

Lana was intrigued. Clearly, the Padawan had seen something on the Jedi's datapad which had startled her, something which she had clearly felt she ought not to have seen. By itself, it didn't seem like very much, but Lana remembered something else she had witnessed a couple of days ago, when the Jedi had left the same datapad momentarily unattended on the main console and Theron, in the process of gathering up the spill of his own datapads, comlinks, empty drink containers and other paraphernalia which seemed to accumulate wherever he had been at rest for a couple of minutes, had absent-mindedly swept it into the pile with the rest. The Jedi had snatched it back far too quickly and, ever since then, Lana had noticed that she did not let it out of her sight.

It wasn't much, but it was the first hint of something remotely out of step with the image of otherwordly calm that the Jedi was so keen to project, and it was definitely something that Lana was going to explore as soon as she got the chance.

The opportunity did not take long to arrive. Zenith, the Jedi's surly Balmorran follower, finished reassembling his blaster in the corner and got up and left the room, muttering about Nadia taking too long with the rations. Lana let another couple of minutes elapse, then got up from her own chair, yawning and stretching, and sauntering over to the table. She put her own datapad down on the table, and poured herself some water.

The Jedi acknowledged her presence with a small, polite nod, but did not look up from her datapad - not until Lana perched on the edge of the table next to her chair and sipped her water. 'How is your reading?'

Common courtesy obliged the Jedi to put her own datapad down on the table and look up at Lana. 'It's fine, thank you. And you?' she added politely.

'Reasonably illuminating,' Lana said, swivelling around a little on the table to face the Jedi as if settling in for a conversation and, in the process, nudging her datapad and Ellezhi's closer together with her thigh. 'One does begin to feel the need for some exercise, however. If Theron doesn't come back soon, we might all wear holes in our screens.'

The pleasantry was acknowledged by a small smile, and Lana saw to her satisfaction that she had been right to think that the Jedi's commitment to a facade of good manners was more powerful than her desire to avoid too much interaction with a Sith. 'He has been some time. I hope he hasn't run into any trouble.'

'He would have signalled us if there was any urgent cause for concern, and he was well-disguised,' Lana said reassuringly. 'He's quite capable.' She resisted the temptation to add 'for a Republic agent'.

'So it seems,' Ellezhi agreed calmly. 'Nevertheless, I hope he returns soon with some actionable intelligence. We need to move quickly.'

'Agreed.' Lana twisted back behind her to reach for the water pitcher, her knee, in the process, further nudging Ellezhi's datapad away from the Jedi and closer to her own. She drank from her refilled glass, replaced it next to the pitcher, and gave a wry smile. 'Rishi water. You can almost taste the parasites.'

'I'm sure it's been thoroughly filtered.'

Lana resisted the temptation to roll her eyes at what presumably passed for interesting conversation on Tython and stood up, stretching again. 'Well, back to work.' She grabbed the nearest datapad off the table - which thanks to her maneuvers, just happened to be the Jedi's - and turned away, the picture of a woman already burying herself in her work again even as Ellezhi gave a protesting sound and stretched out her hand -

Lana let her eyes run over the first few lines of text, and didn't have to entirely feign the surprise she allowed to spread over her features; she had known it would be something embarrassing from Nadia's reaction to accidentally glimpsing it, but really ... 'Oh, but this is - oh -' She pretended to fall silent, as if too absorbed in what she was reading, as the Jedi let her hand fall, presumably recognizing it was too late to stop Lana from reading the file. 

Lana cleared her throat and read:

'" _A broken moan welled up from the depths of the Twi'lek's very soul as he ruthlessly caressed her, only to be swallowed as the pirate captured her mouth in another bruising kiss. Pinned against the bulkhead by his muscular arms, Diona could only struggle helplessly as his tongue explored her mouth with the relentless appetite of a black hole, unsure whether she was fighting to get her hands free so that she could escape Manji's merciless plundering of her quivering body, or so that she could twine her fingers through his mane of fiery hair and give herself over completely to their savage mating of tongues while pressing her small but round breasts, freighted with diamond-hard nipples, against his rock-hard chest_." And I see it goes on like that for another - hmmm - twenty pages.' Lana scrolled airily through the pages of text. ' _Pirates' Plunder_ , by Zullia Erosi.' 

Only then did she allow her eyes to lift. 'My, my, I seem to have taken your datapad by accident.' She cleared her throat innocently. 'Is this common reading matter among the Jedi, would you say?'

She was prepared, more than prepared, to see the silvery sheen of a blush spreading over the blue face lifted to hers. She was ready for the Jedi to snatch the datapad away, for her to stammer out some incoherent justification or transparent excuse; or even for her to try to cover up her embarrassment by angry bluster.

What Lana wasn't expecting was for the Jedi to nod and say affably, 'I wouldn't know, but if you liked that one, you should try _Taken by the Togruta_.'

'What?'

'Or _Ravishers of Rattatak_.' Ellezhi leaned over and tapped at the screen to reveal the sub-menu listing the files in that local directory. 'They're all by the same author. She has something of a formula.'

'Involving alliteration, I assume,' Lana said automatically. She wasn't sure exactly what had just happened.

'You noticed. I haven't read _Weekend in the Wookie Wilderness_ yet, but I believe there was some critical backlash to her _Ecstasy among the Evocii_ , so that might be one to avoid.' Ellezhi leaned forward slightly and said, in a confiding tone, 'I'm not sure what she's going to do once she gets to the Zabraks.'

Lana looked from the serenely smiling Jedi to the datapad and back again. 'I'm sorry, you - you've read a lot of her work?'

'Just the ones that have come in my way.' Ellezhi pointed at the file directory. 'But if you don't care for Zullia Erosi, there are plenty of other authors on there.'

'So I see,' Lana said weakly.

'If I knew more about your tastes, I'm sure I could recommend something,' Ellezhi said brightly.

'What?'

'Your literary tastes. If you're looking to explore this genre, that is.' The Jedi folded her hands in her lap, looking the very picture of cheerful helpfulness. 'I believe I've gained an overview of the main schools in contemporary erotic fiction, but there are also some classics on there. Excerpts from the Chandrilan _Song of Submission_ are quite interesting; it's clearly been very influential despite being an epic poem written entirely in a metrical form based on linguistic tonality. The translation into Basic by Nomi Stolmur certainly played a crucial role in the burgeoning of the slave-centred school of erotic fiction that took place about a century and a half ago, and I believe that traces of the Song can still be ascertained in _Fifty Shades of Gree_ which was published on Alderaan, as I'm sure you know, twenty or so years ago, although obviously the author took pains to render the sado-masochistic conventions into an appropriate vernacular for a book which was to become a galactic bestseller.'

If the planet itself had moved beneath her feet, Lana couldn't have been more surprised than she was to be standing there listening to a lecture on erotic fiction from a smiling Jedi. 'Obviously.'

'The prevailing trend of these particular fictions does tend to be primarily heterosexual,' Ellezhi went on. 'But that's the rather predictable result of the curator's preferences and should by no means be taken as a reliable indicator of the scope of what's historically been a wide-ranging genre, or rather group of genres -'

'Wait,' Lana interrupted, holding up a gloved hand. 'The curator? You mean -'

'Tharan.'

'Tharan?'

'Tharan Cedrax,' Ellezhi elaborated, as if the name alone should explain everything. 'He's a member of my crew. Quite a remarkable scientist.'

Lana knew about Doctor Tharan Cedrax, just as she knew the names, faces and backgrounds of every member of the Barsen'thor's inner circle of followers, but the connection between a brilliant but erratic scientist and the Jedi having a datapad full of badly-written erotic fiction was eluding her at the moment. 

'You see, shortly after I met Tharan on Nar Shaddaa and he joined my crew,' Ellezhi explained as if in response to the blankness of Lana's expression, 'he offered to customize my personal datapad before I headed out on a mission. "Optimize its performance for my particular needs" were his exact words, I believe. We had also had a conversation about literature a few days previously, and he also offered to download one of his personal favourite books on to my datapad in case I had any downtime during the mission to read.' Ellezhi looked thoughtful. 'In retrospect, I believe I should have enquired more closely into his literary preferences before agreeing.'

'And?'

'And during my time on Tatooine, I was pleased to find my pad worked better than ever.' Ellezhi nodded towards the datapad Lana was still holding. 'And it also had _Pirates' Plunder_ on it.'

Lana covered her mouth with one hand to hide a smile. 'I take it Doctor Cedrax continued to optimize your datapad.'

'He made it very difficult to refuse. And it does work very well indeed now. It's just that every time he returns it after a tune-up, it's got another of Tharan's personal favourite works on it.'

'And what exactly does he hope to gain by all this?'

'I believe,' Ellezhi said clinically, 'that he hopes to inflame my animal passions and ... unleash them. In his direction.'

'I take it it isn't working.'

A smile tugged at the corners of Ellezhi's lips before she mastered her expression back into its usual neutrality. 'Let's just say that the expression "Hope springs eternal" might have been coined for Tharan Cedrax. Although,' she added thoughtfully, 'I do wonder if he's perhaps becoming a little desperate.'

'Oh?'

'I'm almost sure that some of his more recent additions to my library have been self-published. Either that, or there is an author out there named Cahra Dextran who coincidentally specializes in a very specific type of narrative.'

'The type that involves rakish scientists seducing heroic Jedi, perhaps?'

'Something like that.' Ellezhi brushed an errant strand of midnight blue hair back into place. 'Cahra Dextran's most recent offering, for example, tells the tale of a stern and virginal warrior maiden who, while exploring some ancient ruins with her dashing companion, triggers a trap which releases some mysterious alien poison. When ingested, it unleashes the seething cauldron of desire she's been concealing but also causes her body temperature to spike. Unless she's very thoroughly satisfied and her fever broken, she will die. So her rakish but caring companion must overcome his natural repugnance to take advantage of her delirious state, and give in to her pleas to ravish her repeatedly on a convenient altar -'

'I take it the warrior maiden's life is satisfactorily saved?'

'Thoroughly, and over the course of several chapters.'

'I suppose it would be too much to hope that she punishes her reluctant ravisher after she regains her senses?'

'If memory serves, after she recovers from the post-orgasmic swoon into which she fell while her hero carried her back to their ship in his muscular arms, the duo find a convenient file in the ship's computer which explains that particular poison can only work to unleash subconscious desires rather than creating them - forcing her to tearfully confess that she's been silently consumed with longing for his fabulous sinewy body throughout their supposedly platonic partnership, but feared the strength of her own lusts should she dare to break her vow of chastity ...'

'Well, as an author of erotic fiction, he's an excellent scientist.'

That surprised a small laugh out of Ellezhi, the first that Lana had heard from the Jedi since they met. 'Truthfully, he belongs heart, mind and soul to Holiday - his sentient holographic computer programme,' Ellezhi added in response to Lana's quizzical look. 'But I believe it would be against his code to cease pursuing a physical relationship with me, as a matter of pride, if nothing else. He seems to view rejection as a challenge.'

Lana mentally filed away sentient holographic computer programme for further study another time, and looked down at the datapad again. She was getting the picture, but something still eluded her. Why would the Jedi, even if she was turning out to have much more of a sense of humour than Lana had bargained for, permit this kind of ongoing behaviour? 'So he sneaks these ... fictions on to your datapad, and you ... read them?'

'Oh, I don't simply read them,' Ellezhi said, sounding shocked.

'I don't understand.'

'These are Tharan's personal favourite books. That's the basis on which he sent it to me. If they weren't genuinely his favourite books, it would be highly inappropriate for him to upload them on to my datapad, after all.'

'Granted.'

'And one can't respond to a gift of literature like that by simply reading. A much more thorough reaction is required.'

Lana frowned. 'Such as?'

'Well, a full reader's report, to begin with.' Ellezhi's eyes were wide as she spoke; there was not a hint of guile in the innocent face upturned to Lana's. 'I make a point of sending Tharan a detailed critical appraisal of each and every work he's introduced me to, including my thoughts of where it might sit within the context of the genre as a whole, my critique of plot, structure, character development -'

'And do you apply this rigorous analytical lens to the more explicit portions of the narrative as well?' Lana enquired, fighting in vain to keep her face as straight as the Jedi's.

'It would be extremely rude not to,' Ellezhi said earnestly. 'If anything, I'd say that my evaluation is even more thorough when it comes to those chapters. Sometimes with annotations. After all, the author clearly put a great deal of time and attention into those scenes. It would be churlish of me not to apply an equally rigorous analysis to the effectiveness with which the setting is established, the writer's grasp of comparative anatomy, their creativity when it comes to position and rhythm -'

Lana could see it all so clearly: The scientist thinking of himself as laying out delicate lures to entice the Jedi into his arms, receiving ten-thousand word critical analyses in return (no doubt with footnotes and suggestions for further reading), but unable to gracefully backtrack along the path he'd chosen. He'd fool himself that at least she was engaging with his material, her analyses giving him hope that if he could just find the right text, he might yet unlock the woman beneath the scholar. She thought any scientist with his reputation would have to be smart enough to realize that the Jedi had him spending long nights locked away in his cabin, pouring over old poems; but clearly ego-driven enough not to be able to simply admit defeat ... She might have felt sorry for him, if it weren't for the fact that she didn't at all. 

'Recently I've experimented with adding discussion points. I thought it might further our studies if we talked his last offering over in person.' Ellezhi paused. 'Unfortunately when he turned up at my quarters, it turned out there had been a misunderstanding.'

Lana compressed her lips, once again fighting the urge to laugh. 'Oh?'

'It seems Doctor Cedrax thought it was going to be a private discussion. Still, once he recovered from his initial surprise, the four of us enjoyed a very stimulating debate about the use of irony in _Supernovas Between the Sheets_. Nadia had a lot of questions about the plausibility or otherwise of various anatomical aspects, performance capacities and so on, Doctor Cedrax having apparently led her to believe he was quite well versed in the area. And Qyzen - you know, my Trandoshan friend? - definitely enjoyed the Mantellian champagne and Neimodian truffles Doctor Cedrax had been kind enough to bring.'

Try as she might, Lana could not stop herself from picturing the Jedi Padawan and the seven-foot Trandoshan listening to Tharan Cedrax try to explain exactly why he had uploaded Taken by the Togruta on to the Jedi's datapad, while the Jedi herself sat nibbling on a truffle, listening intently to everything that was said with exactly the same artless, thoughtful expression her face wore now as she looked up at Lana ...

'Jedi,' Lana said with thoroughgoing admiration and absolute sincerity, 'you are evil.'

'Thank you?'

'Oh, it was entirely a compliment,' Lana assured her. 'I don't believe any Sith would allow such behaviour from one of their followers, but I also can't imagine any Sith that did would come up with so complete a revenge.'

'Revenge?' Ellezhi repeated, her eyes wide. 'I don't know what you mean. Tharan did seem a little awkward during the discussion group. But then, if he doesn't want to participate in our studies, all he has to do is stop providing the material.'

'I thoroughly agree,' Lana said, straight-faced. 'And as long as he continues to share his - literary - tastes with you, you should certainly encourage him to share them with others.'

Ellezhi smiled sweetly. 'I'm so pleased you share my feelings on the subject, Lana.'

It was the first time she'd said Lana's name, and she did it as simply and as artlessly as if it meant nothing, as though they weren't Jedi and Sith at all. Lana looked down at the datapad again, startled by her own throb of pleasure as much as by the Jedi speaking to her as if they were ... friends, or something on their way to being so. Again, she had the sense that something had shifted without understanding quite what, and she didn't care for it any more than she had the first time. She had come over here with a clear aim in mind - to find a crack in the Jedi's armour of serenity, to bring her on to a more human level, to see her blush - and instead she felt as if she was farther from understanding the woman than ever; worse, she was closer to liking her than she would have believed possible ten minutes ago. 

Clearly, reappraisal was needed, and a tactical retreat was in order. 

Not wanting to meet the Jedi's eyes just then, she kept her own eyes on the datapad. 'Well, you've clearly got a lot of literary analysis to do, I should - wait, what's this?'

She had tapped on an open file, minimised at the bottom of the screen, expecting it to be Pirates' Plunder; but the text that filled the screen was much denser, and it looked extremely ... familiar?

> _Despite the numerical advantage enjoyed by Imperial forces at the Battle of Alderaan, and the far greater concentration of Force users among the Empire's troops under the command of Darth Malgus, the Republic's ability to concentrate power at a point proved decisive. While Imperial accounts of the battle briefly mention the intervention of a solitary Jedi knight, Satele Shan, Republic sources are unsurprisingly much more detailed - and disturbing. It was Shan's ability to coordinate effectively with Force-blind Republic troops, despite having arrived when the battle was already at its height, which led to the immobilization of Malgus and ultimately to the Republic snatching victory from the jaws of defeat. It is the privilege and burden of the powerful Force user to be able to sway the course of history at such moments, chiefly by intervention in armed conflicts, often taking the form of successfully achieving feats thought to be impossible. In a battlefield context, it might be said that this is what the Sith and the Jedi are for ..._

Even with the shielding they were both employing, Lana felt the shock of emotion ripple through the Force and saw the Jedi start bolt upright in her chair. Not yet understanding, she moved the datapad out of reach even as the Jedi half-extended her hand, seemingly out of instinct, before regaining control of herself and folding her hands in her lap again, seemingly resigned. 

'I wrote this,' Lana said quietly, scrolling through the text. 'You've been reading my book?' 

She looked up from the datapad in time to see it; the slow silvering of Ellezhi's skin. It was, indeed, hard to register consciously; it was if a cloud had been shadowing her face, and was swiftly lifting. The sheen started on her cheekbones, spread across the perfect blue skin, upwards to the Jedi's forehead, outwards towards her ears; a subtle, ethereal gleaming which retained a twilight charm even under the harsh lights of the warehouse. It was the Chiss blush that Lana had hoped to elicit, and indeed - damn her - it did make the Chiss in question look more impossibly, exotically, untouchably beautiful.

'Is there some reason I shouldn't?' And there was an edge of defensiveness in the Jedi's even tones.

'Not to my knowledge.' It was Lana's turn to be artless. 'I just didn't know it was published in the Republic.'

'It isn't. I asked Theron to find me a copy, after we met on Manaan. The initial files on you that he gave me mentioned you had published a book and I - I wanted to read it.' Her skin still had the silvery glow.

Manaan had been almost a year ago, and whatever else Lana might think the Barsen'thor was, she had never pegged her as a slow reader. 'Did he have trouble finding it?'

'No ...' Ellezhi took a breath and then, in the manner of one admitting something deeply intimate, said: 'I only opened the other file when Nadia came over because I didn't want her to know I was reading your book again.'

'Again?'

'This is the third time.'

'Well, I'm flattered you thought it was as worthy of your attention as Cahra Dextran's latest creation.' Lana frowned. 'Are these ... annotations?'

'Just a few,' Ellezhi said defensively.

Lana scrolled, observing the frequency with which notes and comments - some of them appearing quite lengthy - appeared in the margins of the text; it was almost as if the Jedi had been writing back. 'More than a few. "Contradicted by Master Nuray Roye's account of the Battle of Malachor V" - yes, but Roye was on board the _Kawa Nova_ , which was forced to flee the system before the confrontation under discussion had fully unfolded, so his account is inevitably partial. "Insufficient weight given to economic constraints under which Republic operating after Jedi Civil War" - I made it quite clear during the first chapter that the nature and extent of any constraints are essentially irrelevant, they're only the parameters with which the moral behaviour unfolds, any consideration of morality without constraints is simply a futile thought exercise. "Unnecessarily poetic turn of phrase obscures central point, which is powerful when allowed to stand on its own merits" - well. I'm glad you found my argument powerful, but you must explain to me what you have against poetry.'

'I don't have anything against poetry -'

'Just mine?'

'The quality of the prose isn't the problem with your treatise. It's the content. Your overt conclusions are conventional enough but the way you write - the connections you draw - the richness of your prose ...' Ellezhi shook her head. 'It's subtle, but it's everywhere.'

'What is?'

'Your invitation to the reader to come to a far less orthodox conclusion than your supposed closing argument.' Ellezhi was speaking with more animation than Lana had ever seen her, gesturing to emphasize her words, her ruby eyes alight. 'Your writing tempts the reader to ask not just whether the Jedi and the Sith are truly so different in the way they behave on the battlefield, but whether it even matters that our ideologies are diametrically opposed if our actions can be said to be the same. '

'And?'

'And of course it does. It must!' Ellezhi met Lana's eyes squarely, then her intense frown softened and she admitted ruefully, 'I simply haven't been able to find the right way to dismantle your argument and prove it.'

'So that's why you've read my book three times?' Lana asked, raising her eyebrows. 'To try to pick it apart?'

There it was again, the almost imperceptible silvering of the skin, the slight intensification of that ethereal glow, as if everything but the Jedi darkened and receded. 'What other reason could there be?'

'Oh, I don't know,' Lana said slowly. 'I thought - perhaps - you might have liked it. But that's obviously ridiculous.'

Ellezhi met Lana's eyes briefly, then swiftly looked down again, lowering her eyelids in a way that almost looked ... shy. 'Ridiculous,' she echoed in a tone that was not quite as light as she clearly intended it to be.

Here was the advantage Lana had been looking for, her moment to really push the Jedi and watch her maddening calm dissolve. She had the woman on the ropes; she was one more probing question away from being flustered, and knowing that Lana saw her being flustered. It was the whole reason she had started this in the first place. 

Instead, Lana held out the datapad to Ellezhi. 'Here.'

'Thank you.' Ellezhi reached out and took hold of it, still not meeting Lana's eyes. Her bare thumb brushed Lana's gloved one, and Lana's sense of the other woman's presence in the Force intensified all at once, as though she was suddenly immersed. The Jedi looked up as though startled, and Lana looked down into those fathomless red eyes ...

'Theron's back!' Nadia reported breathlessly, sticking her head around the door jamb. 'Zenith went up to the roof and saw him coming.'

Lana pulled back her hand from the datapad; Ellezhi stood, calm as a graven image, but Lana noticed her run the palms of her hands down the side of her thighs, as if they were sweating or shaking. 'Thank you, Nadia.'

'Let's hope he has useful intel,' Lana added, pleased that her own voice was as steady as Ellezhi's.

'"Useful intel" would be my middle name, if I had a middle name,' Theron announced, strolling in to the warehouse on Nadia's heels. He was still wearing his beggar disguise, with carefully painted-on sores concealing his features, and was clearly fresh from the streets, with all the dust and smell that implied on Rishi. He made a beeline for the water pitcher by Lana and Ellezhi, pouring himself a brimming glass and gulping it down; his eyes flicked from Lana to Ellezhi as he drank. 'What were you two talking about?'

'Philosophy,' Lana answered, in the same moment Ellezhi said: 'Literature.'

Theron snorted. 'And here I thought you too couldn't agree on anything. Glad to see I was wrong.'

'Sorry to disappoint you,' Ellezhi answered Theron - but she was still looking at Lana, and as she finally turned away to follow Theron over to the console, Lana caught the tiniest hint of a conspiratorial smile curving one corner of the Jedi's mouth, and could have sworn there was more than a hint of fellowship - and wickedness - in the last glance thrown her way from those dazzling red eyes.

And maybe Lana is exactly Sith enough to be attracted by the proximity of so much power. 

**Author's Note:**

> Set during Shadow of Revan.
> 
> All good relationships start with making fun of Tharan Cedrax.
> 
> Probably rated it too high but didn't want to surprise anybody with the tiny bit of explicit content.
> 
> Any original character names (apart from Ellezhi's) are from the Star Wars Name Generator.
> 
> First time writing fiction in a long time.


End file.
